A Houston-based oil pipeline company recently made that very flawed argument in a written submission to Canada’s National Energy Board. Kinder Morgan wants to triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which carries oil from Alberta to British Columbia, because of backlogged demand. The pipeline has a 300,000-barrel-a-day limit, and yet the company’s demand exceeds that by about 70%, according to the National Post. Opponents of the expansion think increasing the amount of oil travelling through the pipeline will increase the likelihood of a spill.

Maybe that’s why, buried deep in Kinder Morgan’s 15,000 page submission to the NEB, the oil company argued oil spills “can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies,” because of the economic benefits brought on by clean-up efforts. “Spill response and clean-up creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and clean-up service providers,” the report reads.

B.J. Herbison on
May 3rd, 2014 at 13:03:

They are right. Also, car accidents and late detection of cancers help the economy by creating more health care jobs. and government sale of mining rights are considered a positive for the government economically because the environmental damage and loss of the minerals mined are not considered.

Economic measures are generally what’s good for business, not what’s good for humanity.

Kharkov on
May 4th, 2014 at 12:58:

Don’t forget war. There’s money to be made building bombs & the planes to drop them and more money to be made rebuilding things afterward (The image of Milo from Catch 22 taking a contract from the Germans to pay his own squadron to bomb his own base comes to mind here).
Of course a few of the little people get hurt but they’re a renewable resource…